Pluralizing the Code. Designed National Symbols Beyond Reverence

Migration evidences that national identities are hybrid and evolving. Nations on the contrary tend to be perceived as totemic and static, defined by permanent traits and leaving the transitory out. The designer Daniela Bustamante started in 2015 a collaborative project entitled “To Kiss or Not To Kiss” that redesigned the Dutch “Kissing Couple,” a traditional souvenir from the Netherlands. Her reworking dressed the figurines in national dresses of different migration communities present in the Netherlands, thereby evidencing the multicultural composition of the country. Its presentation at the 2017 Dutch Design Week unexpectedly caught the attention of the conservative press that showed a manifest misunderstanding of the designer’s original intentions. This case demonstrates the challenges of designing national symbols beyond a reverential attitude toward the nation. National symbols that do not glorify the nation are condemned as an attack. Glorifying or attacking the nation seem the only two possible options. Subverting this binary code proves difficult in as much as it goes against a well-established interpretative tradition. Far from being insolvable, this paradox calls for further theoretical frameworks that integrate the dynamics of human displacement with the idea of a nation confined within borders.